Jita Park Speakers Corner

I promised specific ideas, and here are two of 'em:

Add newbie-level PvE in nullsec

A number of nullsec corps accept relatively fresh noobs, as they provide new blood and someone to fly a tackle frigate. When the noob firesales their worldly assets and makes their way out to their new home, they find one non-shitfit frigate and...not a lot else. Nullsec belt ratting is slow and tentative in a newbie ship, and nullsec anoms or profession sigs are right out. Mining is...well. Mining. The result is that a number of new players find that they’ve moved locations and submitted themselves to wardecs only to play skill training online. They can sometimes tag along with a bigger ship, but the addition of Sleeper AI on all rats has made that more challenging. And besides, solo ratting is its own kind of relaxing.

I’d like to see smaller anoms (akin to some of the highsec and lowsec ones) in nullsec as well. Of course, players completing them in nullsec will receive higher bounties than they would in high -- a newbie moving to null should see their income increase immediately as a payoff for the increased risk of gank they’re taking on. They can rat by themselves to their heart’s content, learning valuable ship piloting skills along the way. In this way, each level of k-space would have PvE content for people of all skill levels. These smaller anoms would spawn in addition to the already spawning harder anoms (hubs, sanctums, etc) and not replace them.

Define ‘activity-based’ sov

The goal: make space which is empty harder to hold, incentivize higher activity in sovereign nullsec. Make sovwar less of a boring supercap slog.

Here, in general, is how I can see the sov system working. Sov level, instead of increasing over time for no real reason, decreases slowly over time. All activity in the system -- mining, PvP, PvE, jumps -- contributes to sov level in some way, although activities may contribute differently based on who’s doing them. At higher sov level, structures are harder to shoot and the system can be more effectively locked down (cynojammers etc). Should the sov index drop, these mods become nonfunctional. Additionally, SBU onlining time depends on sov level. Up to a certain point, you can spend money to harden a system temporarily -- after all, if you’ve just taken a system, you should be able to drop a lot of isk to try to shore it up against the retaliation. This would be in the form of destructable, fuel-using mods.

Sov level 1: You’ve put down a TCU and maybe some POSes. Nobody lives there. SBUs online fairly quickly and a medium-large subcap fleet can take down the TCU in a reasonable amount of time. If the aggressors are willing to commit dreads, the TCU can be taken down fairly quickly.

Sov level 2: An active corp not in your alliance which spends a lot of time on PvE can keep a system up at sov level 2. Alternately, a few guys in your alliance who rat here on occasion can do it, or a couple of in-alliance miners. If you’re holding a major pipe system, it might upgrade itself if it sees a lot of transit-- after all, people are jumping through, so there’s something going on. A good enough gatecamp or some fleet battles will also secure your hold on the system, although only kills from your alliance will boost the index. SBUs online faster than usual and the TCU has lower hitpoints than usual, but is a bit of a tougher cookie.

Sov level 3: You can get here by combining pretty much any two from level 2, or by putting some effort into PvEing with your alliance in one timezone. This is where you start seeing real system upgrades being possible. As currently, you can add a cynojammer at level three, thus securing your system against titan drops. Jump bridges can also be anchored at this level, but not below, limiting force projection to space you’re actually controlling. SBU and TCU stats are unchanged from present.

Sov level 4: To get here, you need to have a fair number of guys on -- camping the system, mining it up, and shooting them red crosses, across more than one timezone. Having a lot of jumps in or some industry will help as well, as will (again) repelling invaders. SBU onlining times slightly increased, TCU HP increased as well.

Sov level 5: This level is almost entirely for capital systems -- places where stuff’s going on all day, every day. SBU onlining times greatly increased, as is TCU HP. If it’s your home, someone should have to lay a siege.

These are, here, general guidelines. Ideally, the distribution of space would be a few systems at sov level 1 (stuff someone TCU’d once, the places basically nobody ever is), more systems at sov level 2 (currently ‘highly utilized’ systems with 2-3 ratters in them at most times, or a system with a random corp just squatting in it), and most alliance systems at the high end of sov level 3 or into 4. The decay of sov level should be slow, to prevent one cloaky camper from messing all your stuff up. Speaking of cloaky campers, AFK cloaky camping would have to be looked at in this situation, as its utility is increased under an activity-based system. Non-afk cloaky camping, however, is fine.

Crazy? Wack? Out there? Just right? Missing something? Seriously, give me feedback. All of my ideas I get from talking to other people and synthesizing things into something that makes sense.

Definitely support and not because you're in my alliance, but due to the strong promotion of tying sov infrastructure levels to system activity. The biggest issue in the game are AFK empires that squat on too much null-sec without actually using it. As a person who enjoys roaming, I'd like regions to actually... have people in them, rather than just being buffer sov-shields and moon placeholders.

Break down the ability to have giant jump bridge networks through otherwise empty space and maybe we can populate 0.0 again with fresh, new entities.

Finally a candidate that doesnt completely disregard NRDS when they propose sov changes.

You have my vote.

i will support you to help NRDS gameplay style (like more ally standing slot )

I'm for it, as long as they don't destroy the existing solo ones. Solo and group gameplay are both valuable parts of the game, and a challenging group PvE option (mini-incursions sigs?) would provide a PvE goal for those players who can just blitz hubs and higher anomalies. The isk goal should be a bit above but close to what you can get from doing the highest level anom to which you have access at a high speed and skill level, to draw in optimizers without just throwing isk at everyone.

Sure, people will dock up or pos up if a hostile stranger comes by (a friendly stranger can boost your activity index!), but if they stay docked too long, they’re bored, losing out on isk, and not pushing towards sov goals. My hope is that they and other people in system then look around and undock in PvP ships -- there will always be more gank targets (someone will think afk-nightmare ratting is a good idea, at least once), but it’s those surprise defense fleets that get you good fights.



I’m fine with small numbers of players at-keyboard* being able to disrupt sov. That’s working as intended! The sov index should not fall quickly, so a camp from say Bomber’s Bar wouldn’t totally blow your weekend and send you back down to apparently-inactive levels. The limit to the damage of hostiles is their patience and determination. If a hostile group makes a concerted effort to camp you in day after day for a week or two and you haven’t been able to rustle up a PvP fleet (when in doubt, blob!) or a breakout from your friends...yeah, that’ll hurt. You can’t lose sov that way, just sov index, which makes your structures squishier and limits the kinds of defense you can mount (although if you can get someone to set up some system hardeners, you can still get something-- at a cost). That kind of effort is part of what I mean when I say I want to bring sovwar away from boring structure grinds and supercapital blobs.

*My proposals come with the need to look at cloaky camping and find a way to disrupt afk cloaky campers without harming the at-keys one. I don’t have a great idea ready -- it’s a hard problem. My current favorite is some kind of sensor analysis probe deployed by an Astro V covops that takes 10+ minutes to complete a scan (while also requiring the covops to be decloaked) and then deploys a beacon, decloaking the target and allowing the covops to warp self/friends in. If the cloaky is at keys, they’ll see it or the covops on d-scan, or worst case, notice it on grid. If with all those bells and whistles they can’t manage to warp out before a covops with a point warps in...well.

I support Ali since we need CSM candidates to be neutral against all power blocks in null sec so that they dont nerf what they dont own and prevent nerfing what they already abuse

Wish you best of luck

o7

Oh lord. Highsec is complicated.

I do think highsec needs to be changed. I agree with several others that the current balance of risk/reward is tilted in highsec’s favor -- while you can’t necessarily make as much money as you can in null (or poor forgotten lowsec), you can make a fair percentage of it quite consistently and with minimal amounts of pain-in-the-ass. The way that you (editorial you, your way is much more awesome) do that tends to be boring, stagnant, and with the exception of incursions, frequently solo.

I think a couple of things could help tilt the balance in favor of interesting emergent gameplay in highsec. Some of them you’ve mentioned -- I like your ideas around making the corporation in highsec more relevant. For me, I’d like to see some additions to the newbie training lines to introduce fresh noobs (as well as older but inexperienced players) to some of the er...harsher realities of life in New Eden, as well as the tools that can be used to overcome them. NPCs can be used to simulate many likely hazards, and it would be nice to have one of them screw you over -- and then other NPCs help you get revenge, using some of the same tools you would use in a real situation. Likewise, it’s perfectly possible to set up a d-scan exercise -- both the ‘watch your dscan and don’t die’ kind and the ‘here is how you find that delicious delicious target’ kind.

Basically, I’m looking at ways to slowly expose risk-averse folks to small amounts of interpersonal risk and the thrill of scheming to bring down your enemies. This exposure is intended to empower them, introducing them to the kind of gameplay that gets people hooked and turns them into content-creators. Personal storytime: when I was but a Fresh Carebear Noob, my friend who I subbed with got canflipped during a mining op. It was bewildering and frightening and totally depressing. We lost a substantial investment in hull and infrastructure we’d made to further our mining operations (noob lack-of-isk: also a problem), and we’d lost it in a way that seemed random and unpreventable. Clearly the aggressor was so much better-skilled than us that we could not hope to take him on, certainly not without inviting the wrath of CONCORD. Concluding that the game totally sucked, we quit. Nine months ago, after a few halfhearted stabs at the game, I resubbed on the advice of another friend. His coworker was reforming the corp of which I’m currently a member and teaching people how to PvP, and it was totally awesome. We did a bit of training and then went out on a roam, and I killed something . Later that night, I lost my cheap corp-provided frigate taking a ‘shortcut’ , and the next day, I lost my prized PvE horribly shitfit brutix in an object lesson in Why Intel Channels Matter. I didn’t even care, because I was now a PvPer. I could kill things. I’d seen it.

I think more people can have that moment of magical spark where they’re no longer content to just grind l4s all the time, but actively interested in the interpersonal parts of the game -- the parts that make you fight back on a wardec, steal your enemies’ stuff, and kick their sandcastles over. I want changes to help foster that ‘ahah’ moment, and I’m still working out what that will look like. Part of that project is talking to people -- people who live in highsec who hate risk and grind missions, people who’ve moved from high to null (or the other way ‘round). I want to understand the ‘risk’ part of risk/reward, and how to manipulate perception of that to create an interesting, dynamic, dangerous game while still smoothing out the infamous learning curve.

Edited to add: I do also support improving nullsec industry via fixing poses and increasing nullsec low-end supply, which would have the effect of nerfing highsec mining (especially afk mining) income. Providing improved industrial capabilities in null, especially if those capabilities could be specialized towards the kinds of building that nullsec alliances need (oops, Ali accidentally our entire naga stockpile and then some, gotta build 100 nagas before tomorrow at 1800), should draw slightly less risk-averse carebears towards null, especially if activity sov meant that they would have a valuable role in alliances. That said, that's a case of more practical effects and less of a philosophical manifesto for highsec itself.

Edit II: having talked to more people, hoo boy does the wardec/NPC corp system need a fix. If that goes in at the same time as or after a nullsec industry buff, it won't even deeply nerf the ability for Goons etc to get things to their space.

U got my vote

Supporting NRDS and allow newbie acces to 0.0 is a great thing

You have my support and my corps.

High sec needs a new sec status systems above 1 for new pilots, so they can be immune all forms of aggression while they do the tutorial missions and learn EVE how cruel Eve can be. (Limited to skill point level)

Cloaks need some form of nurfing to stop system campers... eg max time limit or use a PI made fuel.

Thanks for you answer you get my vote anyway but here is my 2isk worth..


High sec -> Null sec and Null sec -> bordem thus creates natural barriers to new blood. There is no easy answer


All for fun.. but fun doesn't mean it has to be a group operation



POSes just need to be fixed! CCP notion of Mobile POSes or self Poses made good on paper sense.



Yep I agree; except that I have already come to that conclusion - CCP is making it more level to let everybody have a good shot and not to get wiped off the board. However if I am paying 10x the amount on a Ship I do expect *at least* double something; and then not handy capped elsewhere.

Excellent idea on Cloak buster.; Love the idea of PI material or even Fuel block requirement ; something like 1 fuel widget per 30 mins or part there of; you can hold a 8 hours worth at a time - in the modules fuel space. Not enough to be a burden if you really wanted to do it but enough to be a headache that it would promote Null industry.

Thanks again.
Ramman