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I feel the new changes to PI will make null sec pi more interesting. However for those folks in low and high sec it is not so good. The changes make it so only large corps will be able to compete in low sec. What will happen is a drop off in players using this feature. PI in low and high sec was never a big isk maker to start with. Now many people who engage in PI have less of a reason to continue doing PI.

While I applaud CCP for its efforts at contunuing to improve the game this particular idea isn't the best.

I'm somewhat discouraged to hear the response from Omen through someone besides Omen.

If the idea was to reduce profits, yeah... the new POCOs will get that done. Nothing has been done to address the fundamental problems with the feature, which I'm not surprised about. I've been thinking about it and my problem with it really boils down to this:

Previously, there were many people ninja PI'ing in low-sec. They were able to do this because their CO's were static. After that, it's just about avoiding the pirates. The market has adjusted to the supply available (both in terms of volume of goods demanded/required, and the pricing of said goods). The PI products are integrated into everything in eve these days, besides ships (sort of). This is basically caused by PI goods being used to manufacture and fuel the Player Owned Starbases and sovereignty structures in null sec. Towers are so strongly tied to the price of everything that by increasing the price of PI goods, you are increasing the prices of all goods on the market today (and that's assuming demand doesn't change.) With a new expansion coming out, more players (presumably, based on previous active player counts) will cause a general increase in demand of goods driving prices even higher and exacerbating the problem.

All that being said, my problem is not with the price as determined by the market. Eve's capitalist system ensures that goods sell for what they are worth (in general). By big issue is the availability of PI materials (and correspondingly the volume of produced goods and services). Even in the interim, when stockpiles will be used to supply the needs of Eve (this is also common at the expansion boundaries), this problem will not be apparent. Once the stockpiles are used up, we only have the flow of PI goods from tier 1 producers.

This is the other part of the problem. Because of how PI has been implemented, many of the producers that bring materials into the system are no longer producing or doing so in high-sec to avoid the mess that low-sec will be. This is the volume drop that will cause the corresponding price hikes. Forget the inflation going on with the lack of ISK sinks that I initially thought could cause problems.

TL;DR

The people against this change all have a piece of this explanation for why we're against it. I'm trying to look at the big picture here based on my experience with the Eve player base. This isn't healthy for the game, and if any of this doesn't look familiar to you, dev's, you need to take another hard look at how you're implementing this feature.

I get my information from the blogs. Neither the first or updated blog ever directed anyone to a wiki link for information. The first mention I see of the wiki article is from today. Regardless it is even vague as to there being a major change.

What I do see in the official blogs, is "The taxes you paid before can be translated into this new system, and that would equal 5% tax in a player owned customs office. So, if you set the tax to 5% you will pay the exact same as before."

The exact same, not 'multiply it by 100 because we are changing something else but not telling you about it in the blogs'.

Yeah.. every time they claim this, they end up adding in a feature that is really only useful to big alliances under some idea that it will encourage people to 'team up'.

Meanwhile the high-sec L4 isk faucet (which buys all those expensive toys found but not used in null) remains the same. Things that help null are left alone, thing that compete with null are nerfed... and of course low sec still ends up with the short end of both sticks.

The tax is your only tangible expense for extraction/production once the colony is set up, so as long as you're selling for more than the tax the only thing you're potentially 'wasting' is your time.

Exactly.

Interesting thing is, prices in my region have already risen enough to offset the extra custom charges, so its not the PI bunnies who are losing out, its the end product users.

Lowsec POCO ownership aint gonna work, just too many griefers out there shooting for tears.

The only winners out of this revision are going to be those who own lots of nullsec in which to run a safe POCO infrastructure... oh look, that wouldn't be those big boys with a disproportionte influence in this game... would it?

*sigh*

One day, CCP will wake up to the fact that the bulk of their income comes from the relatively silent majority of players who are engaged in 'small enterprises', and start throwing us some fish too.

What do you think the whole PI system is?

It has always been, and continues to be, a great way to make money for 'small enterprise' people.

Smaller Corps - Yes
Solo Players - No

Eve is multiplayer

1) Dalketh gets hot over a controversial change
2) Dalketh believes everyone who does not support his world view is paid to think they way they do
3) Dalketh not that clever

Well. I COULD post my layout that does generate a lot of profit (15% less than before the tax change, but 85% of a hell lot is still a lot). But... I will not.
It's not that clever since everyone will copy it and throw me out of the market.
But if you are so desperate you think about quitting EVE, you may contact me ingame. If you pay me some ISKies, I'll teach you how you can still get rich with PI (15% less rich, but still rich).



Does that include undoing all the balance changes that came with Crucible?