Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Well they are all in Low sec already. And there are a whole lot of PVE ships headed there just now to get SoE LP.

Hmm anybody getting any ideas....

This

The rest is **** opinions

You seem to think the SoE ships are gonna require both Gallente and Amarr ship skills to pilot. I don't remember the Dev's mentioning that at all. I think there will probably be some new skills added to the game = Sisters Frigate and Sisters Cruiser skillbooks.

Yes the Dev's did say the ships will have a Drone bonus like Gallente and Armor bonus like Amarr. They also said the ships will be Tech 1 with Covert Ops capability and be packing some firepower as well. They also said the Sisters Cruiser will be able to handle DED 6/10 plexes.

Obviously the intention is to encourage players to explore low sec. I don't see it requiring cross training between enemy Factions in order to pilot those ships but hey, lately CCP has been turning most everything in game upside down so you just might be right.


DMC

Please, no misinformation in this thread. The opinions of some of the posts are hard enough to grok, without having some of them based on rumours and heresay: https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=283120 .

There was, and now most certainly is, EVERY reason to believe SoE ships will operate exactly like Guristas, Blood Raider, Sansha, Angel or Serpentis ships do: by requiring both ship skills that the hull derives bonusses from (in this case Amarr frigate + Gallente frigate for the Astero, and Amarr cruiser + Gallente cruiser for the Stratios).

Please don't throw stones at others after the fact. If you wanna take troll pot shots at people, go back to GD sub-forum.

Also I had stated that was what I thought was gonna happen, not what will happen.


DMC

Please, do compare the timestamps of your post and CCP Rise's.
There is a world of difference in importance and gravity between L4 security missions and L3 ones like available in Simela; let alone L2 ones like those available in Quier. This is undisputably evident by the remuneration offered in return for the completion of lower-classed missions, both financially, and in Loyalty Points. If the Sisters of EVE found themselves in dire need of transport capacity (as you seem to indicate), they would offer considerably better pay than they currently do in Gicodel, where L4 distribution missions barely reach the remuneration offered for L2 security missions.

Outside the in-universe reasoning, the fact remains that on may 19th 2011, the Gicodel mission hub was ruined by the reclassification / specialisation of agents in Incursion 1.5. There was no in-universe explanation for the nerfing back then, so I consider any in-universe explanation for the un-nerfing to be a bonus, and not, in fact, required.

But all of you who oppose a more balanced distribution of these important agents can rest easy: it's been a week, and I have not observed any gm or dev response, despite the attention of a member of the CSM.

To the others that posted in agreement, I offer you my thanks, but I've mostly given up hope of ever effecting meaningful changes in this game where cynicism, opportunism, and disentitlement reign supreme. I'll probably refocus my vain efforts at attempting to improve the experience of my fellow EVE players by supporting the cause to get CCP to drop the "i" from "Stratios".

Actually we call it gold, but thanks for asking.

As to OP: fully supported. +1

Well, I hope you welcome criticism in the comments as well, but your last reply kind of shot that down. Oh well. I'll offer some anyhow.

Background: I used to run a Mach out of Gicodel on occasion. I was occasionally annoyed by the kitchen sink mission pool, but it was profitable from time to time.

I also have a small, mostly industrial base of operations in Simela and I've used the L3 agent there to grind standings and rake in some LP on the side.

Oh, I'm also nearly +9 to Gallente Federation; Amarr and Caldari standings are above KoS -- but just barely. So all in all, on paper I have every reason to support restoring Gicodel, and in fact you can find quotes of me saying things like "Gicodel is being killed" back from when the changes were pushed through to start with.

But that was years ago now, and my perspective has changed.

You hear two things quite a bit on these forums, repeated like mantras and often -- though not always -- lacking any serious thought behind them: Eve is a PvP game and Eve is about choices. They are both, incidentally, true. But the implications are a bit obscured by constant repetition. So let's talk about... economics?

There are no truly scarce resources in Eve. Nothing has a finite source; everything can be had on massive scales if you just go out and get it. The only thing this isn't totally true of is PLEX, but we actually don't know for sure how all the PLEX in the game is created and it isn't really relevant here anyhow. Bottom line: things like specific kinds of LP, specific items, etc. all have an infinite supply but some sort of relative scarcity combined with relative demand which together set exchange rates and hence prices.

Relative scarcity in Eve is driven by factors that are hard-coded (drop rates) and factors that are based in player behavior and it's the latter that's actually interesting here. And that brings us to choices.

In other games, if you do x you get y. You then repeat that activity and end up with more or less the same outcome and can do so ad naseum. There's no competition to speak of; it's a level playing field and everyone can have everything through repetition. Not so much in Eve: we have to consider consequences of our actions.

And what does that mean exactly? Well, quite a bit. First, if we keep doing activity A, eventually the relative worth of activity A will decline because the uncovered resource will be less valuable. That's pretty simple: the more people mine veldspar, the less trit is worth. The more people who grind LP for any given faction, the less that LP is worth (hi Minmatar militia!). And that more or less forces us to either choose to not optimize our time (ie, keep doing whatever we do regardless of relative value) or to do different things.

Another corollary is that, yes, every activity is PvP to one extent or another. Even doing something safe like grinding L4s in high sec puts you in indirect conflict with other players over maximized value.

Now we have to tie in uneven resource distribution. If all resources were equally attainable, all resources would be more or less worth the same amount (or at least have a highly fixed exchange rate). Luckily, both player behavior and hard-coded inequality drive resource acquisition, leading to a dynamic set of exchanges that create a vibrant economy and incentivizes a wide range of choices by a wide range of players.

Which brings us back to Sisters LP. It's not exactly easy to attain, as there are some odd choices involved. The only high sec L4 agent is in hostile space for many people who would grind Sisters LP, and even those people who grind it are forced to balance out their standings lest they be shot by the Caldari Navy, which causes a sort of dynamic instability to what would otherwise be hands-down the best LP store in the game -- for a short time until everything crashed due to overproduction. Because if SoE LP were available just anywhere, why wouldn't you farm it?

So no, I don't think at this point Gicodel should be restored. SoE LP involves a fairly interesting set of choices that drive its prices up and for those people willing to make those choices there is a benefit. That's more or less as it should be.

Nadia Gallen, Zhilia Mann, I cannot fault anyone for taking the time to respond to my posts with such eloquence, even if I disagree with what you are advocating. So, please take my earlier statement as meaning that, while I do not thank people that advocate opinions that are contrary to mine, I do appreciate and respect them.

A little clarification though: I'm not Kill On Sight in Caldari space (I try to make sure to do an epic arc now and then to avoid dropping to -2.00 modified or below). I hadn't even considered that people that would typically mission for the Sisters of EVE might not even be able to fly to Osmon to do L4 security missions there. If anything, this realisation renews my resolve in this matter!

I understand those of you who say that EVE is harsh, and that one should harden the hell up, but I'm primarily objecting to what I consider the arbitrary nerfing of Gicodel, but not Osmon. The prospect of new and high-profile SoE LP store offerings merely provides just cause for restarting an older discussion about the subject.

I do consider that campaigning for a more fair distribution of SoE agents in general (i.e. a L4 security agent in each empire faction's space) instead of merely fighting to have Gicodel reinstated, triples my potential support base (enfranchising Amarr and Minmatar HS players as well as the initially targetted Gallente HS players), which is why I support this more balanced SoE agent distribution adjustment on top of my original intent.


DeMichael Crimson, I posted my thread in Missions and Complexes because it talks about nothing but mission agent distribution. Instead of posting duplicate threads in General Discussion, Assembly Hall, or Features & Ideas Discussion, I responded to relevant but pre-existing threads in those forums, trusting in my signature to lead people to the thread in which I elaborated on my point of view. You seem to be sure of a great many things that I disagree with... Maybe the RP embellishments I employed in my OP mean that the thread should have been placed in Intergalactic Summit, too?

Naturally, if CCP disagrees with my assessment of the proper location of this thread, they are most welcome to move it to what they consider the relevant forum for this discussion. Likewise, you are welcome to report it to them so that they might start their deliberations.

I stand corrected. Features & Ideas Discussion it is.

I find it somewhat ironic that DeMichael Crimson likely would not have seen this thread if I had originally started it in this forum