Jita Park Speakers Corner

It was stated a couple months ago that all the mineral compression numbers were being spreadsheeted by Kelduum and that he was looking for a solution in this regard to nullsec industry. Who better qualified to do that than the CEO of EVE University?

N/M, thread's too valuable to derail with garbage

Aleks challenged me to find an instance of him using the NDA disingenuously, as an excuse for lack of communication with the playerbase. I offer up his reason for not coming to the players first, because of the NDA, as a good example of just that. Even though the NDA has no bearing on this document at all. Unless CCP actually can claim ownership of his (and the CSMs) ideas.

https://twitter.com/grrusso/status/270352348612808704

I look forward to my PLEX, Aleks.

okay i think i understand where you guys are coming from. Its a case of supply and demand. if the supply isnt there in say local null then manufacturers will import regardless, and if the 'rug' that allows them to do so is perpetually pulled from under them (compression) then regardless of some special case compression where they are, the compression on nothing is still nothing.

Null sec mining does need to be remedied prior to any screwing around with compression, i get that.

The point i was trying to put across is the total removal of compression would hurt null manufacturing even with a healthy supply of minerals as movement is an important and necessary factor of the process. Albeit not as much as it is currently, but thats only because null sec doesnt have a healthy supply side of the formula.

What needs to be taken into account is that in order to not create an unfair artificial barrier of entry for industry in null sec the removal of compression would make industry in small recently established null sec entities much more difficult and taxing, meaning itd only really occur in strong established alliances and coalitions.

The smaller alliances more often then not do not have the pick of the available systems in null so they have to make a series of less desirable systems work for them. The removal of compression altogether would make this even harder.

Someone who knows what they're talking about, has done it. Bonus points for having done it at multiple points throughout Eve's history, both before and after jump freighters were introduced.

*coughs*

Anyway.



Snow Axe scores the point on the tl;dr.

Here's the long and the short of it when it comes to nullsec industry and logistics: When given the choice, we will do whatever is most convenient, even if it costs us more to do it.

Now, early in the game, there was no choice. If we wanted battleships in nullsec, we either flew them individually in convoys, imported them in freighter ops, or stuffed a carrier's bays full of compressed minerals, jumped them to our build point, refined them, very carefully freightered them to a build station, built, and (if necessary) freightered them to a sale station. Convenience factor goes to the compressed minerals - only one person has to suffer, everyone else who wants a battleship merely pays the (oftentimes hefty) markup.

At some point later, jump freighters were introduced. Huge cost? Worth it! If nothing else they represented a massive increase in the amount of compressed minerals we could import. Score! Of course, as is the case today, we quickly figured out that we'd much rather do ten times as many jump freighter trips (and pay the associated 10x fuel bill) shipping finished hulls than we would shipping compressed minerals if it meant we got to not do nullsec freighter work. Heck, seeing as a round trip of a jump freighter is faster than a round trip between factory and refinery in nullsec and that I wouldn't have to do as many freighter trips in empire (as finished hulls are more compressed than minerals themselves), I'm even saving my time.

As an aside, we literally ran the invasion of scalding pass, the destruction of Lokta Volterra, and much of the invasion of BoB controlled space on the backs of a couple of guys with carriers and (later) a mothership. So if anyone tries to tell me that Jump Freighters are somehow why empires these days are so big, I laugh in their face at their ignorance.

Back to the topic. If you give me the means to acquire my minerals locally, via buy orders located in the improved station in which I can build and those miners selling me minerals can refine, you bet I'll take that option, provided that mining volume can supply me with what I need. No freighter work, no jump freighter work, and paying miners Jita buy prices for the minerals will be a bargain to them - they'd get less after shipping. Win win all around.

So that's the end result, the tl;dr from Snow Axe's statement, the first argument against nerfing compression. Give me the means to do get minerals locally, and I won't bother doing compression anymore, because I won't have to.

But, there's a catch there, and that catch is the second argument against nerfing compression. "If I can get what I need." Can (or will) miners supply the war machine? Who knows. Maybe not. Perhaps nullsec demand is simply too high to run locally. If CCP is absolutely determined to nerf compression, then I'd argue that they leave it in after implementing meaningful local supply, just to make sure that removing it isn't going to break and kill nullsec. They can always remove it at a later patch.

Third argument? Give players the choice. If they want to pay the premium in fuel to import finished hulls, maybe because they're bad at forward planning and need them now, let them. If they are good at forward planning, are able to setup the buy orders and source their supplies locally, let them. And, if they don't want to deal a smaller mineral volume than Jita can deliver, - or are launching an invasion or for other reasons do not have or cannot wait for miners - and so would rather import compressed minerals, let them. Eve is a sandbox game, and unless there's a damn good reason for it, player choice should not be restricted.

Which, brings me to my final argument. That "damn good reason" thing. I know that Aleks, at least, has a bit of an axe to grind regarding super. Compression needs to be nerfed, he argues, because the rate of proliferation is too high. To him, it is a damn good reason.

Obviously, I disagree. I've partially addressed that already. CCP's nerfs to supercarriers and then titans significantly dropped the rate at which they were built. It may even be lower now - my numbers were from May and so are nearly six months old at this point. Nerfing compression to nerf supercap proliferation is the wrong approach. First, as I very plainly stated above, players will get around it. If we have to pay more to do it, we will. But second, it's attacking the wrong problem. Nerfing proliferation does nothing to the thousands of supercaps already in existence, does nothing to fix the fact that they almost never die. Take care of that problem - by giving players even more reasons to make war on each other, by nerfing their defensive capabilities, by adding a supercap sized focused warp disruptor module so that supercaps themselves can tackle other supercaps, any or all of the above, even ideas I haven't suggested at all, I don't really care - and the vastly diminished proliferation rate will stop being an issue.

Out of letters. here. ~fin~

And with all changes that have unintended side effects beyond the problem they are trying to solve, mineral compression isn't something to be undertaken lightly. I'm not personally sold on the idea that this needs to be a priority, I'd much rather CCP look at the issue of mineral distribution in lowsec first before nerfing the supply to a region that already has trouble supporting itself, during the time we're trying to make that region of space attractive to live in the first place.

The minute you delve into the details about each topic touched upon in the document, you'll start seeing difference in how each of us as individual representatives would tackle the problem. Keep in mind the purpose of the document was not to prescribe explicit solutions (we can have more focused discussions on the individual topics in separate threads) as much it was to help CCP realize that 1.) They need to tackle some key economic issues next year and not be afraid of major undertakings and 2.) They don't have to give up on either iterations OR the need to showcase new features if they adopt a holistic approach to their expansion-building efforts.



Both are correct. During a meeting where CCP indicated that they were beginning the process of zeroing in on the scope of the expansion content to be tackled in the coming year, we offered to share feedback about what we were hearing from the players in terms of both the big issues to be worked on as well as the expressing the restlessness many of you have described regarding CCP's struggle with hitting the "sweet spot" between Jesus Features and more iterative patch-like expansions in the style of Crucible, Inferno, and Retribution. CCP Ripley said she was interested and gave us a window of time to get a statement together, which we than spent the weekend working on. The result is what is linked in the OP.

To second Two Step, this whole NDA obsession is peripheral to this document and this situation. What is covered by NDA is exactly which meetings we have with CCP, and when, and about which topics. That NDA is lifted when CCP makes that information known themselves, or allows us to, or once the terms of our NDA contract expire.

What we specifically say to CCP, in terms of a document like this, is not. Aleks is correct in that announcing to the players "We've had this meeting with management about these issues and they're interested in these topics" does risk NDA violation even if we still retain ownership of our own advice to CCP.

Thankfully, we're talking about a very short timeframe here that the players weren't aware such a conversation existed, and what is important here is that we were able to move on an opportunity to share high-level advice with CCP management in a timely fashion before they outline their own plans for next year. There is still plenty of time to fine tune specific topic advice in the weeks ahead according to the summit topics schedule, which should be announced sometime this week.

Well said corestwo, and of course you too Hans!

+1

I appreciate the disclosure of the document and the conversations that it is spawning.

It must have been an interesting couple of weeks so I won't second guess the CSM as to the process. It seems reasonable to tread lightly for a short period of time. Thank you for getting it out there.

I understand how, even if it is too late to shape the document before it goes to CCP, that their strategic thinking can still benefit for the wider conversation here. So kudos for taking advantage of the opportunity but still including the community.

On a strategic level I have to admit, the document makes some good points, but seems to me to be stating the blindingly obvious. Perhaps it was something that needed to be said though.

Of course CCP needs to strike a balance between iteration (little things and big fixes) and innovation. Pointing out the player age is a good characteristic. I would go further and point out that it needs to be matrixed by role: Missioners, Industrialists, Null sec empire builders, High Sec pirates, Fashionistas, Explorers, Faction Warriors, Worm Hole Dwellers, Etc. Each need at least little attention over the releases or they start feeling neglected and forgotten, particularly if there are large broken systems afflicting them. (Although some, particular wormholers, might not like attention and shakeups if the changes are not well thought out, so some caution advised.)

Likewise, the game needs the shakeups and the new features, just can't put everything else on hold while they are doing it.

I like the foundation and deliver suggestion, although not sure that wasn't what they where doing anyway.

I might suggest a short term iteration and maintenance team and a long term team. Those could even potentially swap every year and let the long term team switch to maintaining and tweaking their creation. Maybe that is overly simplistic but that dual focus is what is needed.

On the more tactical level, Twocores gives a pretty good analysis on the problems with calling out compression without fixing the underlying nullsec industry problem. Thanks to you and Snowaxe for piping up, and giving really good detail beyond the obvious. That shows how important it was to get this document out to a wider audience.

Well, there's a simple solution to that: Poetic Stanziel for CSM8!